"Actors" short film shot in LA

It started in August, going to LA's Chinatown with Zach Evans, buying sugar cane juice. The two of us had worked together on a short teaser for a horror project he is producing, and now we were talking about what project we wanted to do with all of our free time in the fall. So we wandered around Chinatown, a strange and addictive place. I had just gotten back from New York where I had worked as an assistant to my buddy Matt Tauber, who was directing his first feature film from his own script for a company called HDNet, a successor to OpenCity backed by Mark Cuban and making unique $1.5 million movies on HD back-to-back with a shooting schedule of about 20 days each. It was an intense and terrifying experience, and afterwards I was glad to be back home in LA (as strange as that sounds). I was reeling, trying to figure out where the hell I was as usual. I needed to find a house to live in, for one thing, and I needed to remember why the hell I got started on all of this to begin with.

Chinatown with Zach was a start. My girlfriend Lily saved me with the rest. First of all, she put up with me. I scribbled the script for this new movie on her kitchen table long hand, and stayed in her apartment for almost a month as I looked for a place of my own in Silverlake. She was doing incredible work on a new play and with the Groundlings, and because of that I accidentally met a few of the actors who would work in the movie. First, Jean Paul Rodriguez, from her acting class, and second, Royce Binion, a friend of a terrific actor named Simon Sorrells, a great guy and coincidentally one of Lily's best friends out here. Once I had these guys in mind, I started working on their stories.

But let me back up, because it's always a funny thing where a project comes from and what it's about. In some ways it's a total mystery. This one I called "Actors" because everyone in LA is an actor. It's a strange kind of movie, in three parts, about people who are out of their element and finding a way to move forward. And it's meant to be the exact opposite of the idea you get about LA from watching movies and television. These people define their environment, not the other way around. Jean Paul defined Hollywood, playing the game his own way. Royce was going to literally be cool in any situation, whether it was south LA by Watts where he lived, or Chinatown, where we shot his story. After living here for almost two years, I had a few stories I wanted to work on. Zach, Lily, Jean Paul, and Royce got me started.

This gave me an excuse to start talking to all the people out here who I was looking for a chance to work with. Gabe Reed, an incredible editor who went to the same highschool as I did in St. Louis. A DP named Chris Chambers that I'd heard about from Jared, my roommate from AFI. A composer in Atlanta named Russell Holbrook who I met at Sundance last year, whose stuff I thought would be perfect. Things started to fall into place.

Zach and Drew started looking for the actors I had written without anyone particular in mind, all of them hard types to pin down. The process began. We set up auditions and started scouting locations. Chris Chambers and I started hanging out at least once a week -- mainly over coffee, usually with a great deal of fruitful miscommunication. Actually, the first time we hung out it was to play tennis, and I let him win. We brought in a Production designer named Matt Hausman, who could do everything with practically nothing, and a sound guy named Zach Wrobel who was interested in working with some new equipment. And Josh Weiner, who had directed Lily in a fucking funny short called "Hy-phen," signed on as my AD. It was an incredible team.

Then we headed into the unknown. We shot for a week, hard to even remember it. We made it through. And I got this feeling in the middle, a hard sensation to forget:

Doing almost anything else, I have no idea what to do. But working on a project like this is a little like freefall, and it's like I've been wearing a parachute around to cocktail parties and laundromats. But once I was out of the plane, I knew just what to do.

I'm blogging

Hey,
Cool to be here

Lily in "CRUMBLE (Lay Me Down Justin Timberlake)"

Congratulations! Lily has gotten her first glowing review in the LA Times for her role in "CRUMBLE" as a psychotic 11 year-old who builds a bomb. If you are in LA, definitely check this one out. It was just extended through most of November.

"How I Got Lost" announcement from Scott Macaulay's IFP Director's Lab

Check out the link above for a recent IFP announcement regarding "How I Got Lost" and the director's lab. It was amazing to get to participate in this program, and I am making plans to shoot the feature version of the film in Fall 2007.

Back in LA

It's a helluva thing to move to LA and then go back to New York on a job for two months. It was a great experience, and an unbelievable treat to see my friends. It was also completely disorienting, but maybe I just drank too much. It's great to be back in LA and back in the swing of things. It's a sunny, hot August day and I'm working on a behind-the-scenes piece for Andrew Volpe's band LUDO. I'm also looking for a new place to live out here.

"How I Got Lost" screened in St. Louis

I would just like to thank everyone who came to the Tivoli to check out "How I Got Lost" and the other terrific shorts that were shown. It always so much fun for me to come home and especially to screen movies, so I was upset that I could not make it this time. I was in New York working for Matt Tauber and HDNet films on a movie called "All Fall Down," and the screening happened in the middle of our crazy production schedule.

In any case I'm looking forward to spending more time in St. Louis this fall.

Outlier: Here I am ... wait, where am I?

So I find myself here, in the desert somewhere outside Joshua tree, telling an actor "I'm sorry, but you have to do it again," shooting a movie called "Outlier." His shirt is already drenched in red corn syrup. So then he puts enough fake blood in his mouth to make him gag and I say "cmon goddamnit let's roll now, now!" And then it's action and he's stumbling along, falls to his knees, and then artistically spits up a mouthful of blood onto an already existing puddle from the previous takes. This time though, he really goes for it, even falls over the side from his knees, coughing and dying. It's all fairly realistic. Then it's cut, everything is done, I have fake blood on my hands and I don't remember how, and it's time to get back to the real world.

So now I'm in my apartment in Burbank with Kevin and Ivette, who sublet it to me for almost a year. We're all moving out now and the place is bare. All day the furniture sat in the front yard, like someone got confused where the walls were, where outside ended and inside began. And I'm in the empty living room and Kevin's friend is trying hard to outdrink him. The next day they're gone and I'm moving a couch and a bed into storage myself with a giant Uhaul. I go home to empty rooms and piles of paper and find a bottle of wine and get ready to find my goodbye, as Holden taught me. After awhile I find it.

So then I'm at Lily's apartment, packing for the plane. It's even later now and I'm wrapping her secret birthday presents and setting up my computer for her. She is sleeping peacefully, totally out, and I already miss her, know it's going to take a lot to get by without her, even if I'm working on a feature film in NY fulltime for the next two months.

Here I am in New York, strange to be back, great to be back. I feel like I'm in Europe for some reason, travelling light, working hard. Decided to join a gym, started using a bigger wallet... these things show that I am becoming more mature. Every day wake up with a mission, working with great people, people who make movies for a living. Ended up on a terrace with Ted Hope, the guy who made New York film happen from 1990 on. Here I am: learning everything there is to learn being in a production office three weeks away from principal photography.

Found out that I got into the IFP directing lab for emerging directors, a workshop set up for people about to make their first feature. Right place, right time. Lab starts on Tuesday.

Trenton, Richard Vague, AFI: news so subtle it's blatant

Cat, Dom, Sam, my mom and dad and I screened "How I Got Lost" at the Trenton Film Festival on Saturday, April 30. There was a Q&A and Cat and I did our best to be serious and not talk ourselves seriously at the same time. Graham Hamilton and Cat Yezbak were nominated for a festival award for their work, and I received a "directing award for screenwriting in a narrative short." Which is really pretty fun.

Also, the "How I Got Lost" full screenplay was a finalist for the Richard Vague award for a first feature film by an NYU alumni!

And in other Great News: Blatantly Subtle director of photography Justina Mintz got into AFI!

I've been in New York for the past week, basically wandering around... about four years ago when I made my NYU student film "Bulletin Board," I was in love with the idea of meeting the perfect girl. This last week was the perfect week, a new idea that I am in love with.

Great New Wonderful - the first great 9/11 movie?

Check out the article at the link above.

So tired I can only tell that it's been a few days because I need to shave (again). Tired like falling asleep with shoes on. Looking forward to doing laundry busy. That's what it's been like the last few weeks as Post-Production wraps up on "The Great New Wonderful," which will be screening at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 22.

Many wonderful things! I'm coming to New York. I'll be there for almost three weeks as I escape the bright sleepless sun and the difficult left turn lanes for the place that used to be my home. Good old New York in the Springtime. I'm determined to make the most of it.

The first thing I'm doing is going to see "The Great New Wonderful," which I helped get through post (I was the Post-Production Coordinator, or Supervisor, one of those, anyway I worked hard on it...) I can't wait to see how it plays on the big screen. Premiere is April 22, with three other screenings. Let me know if you wanna come so I can get you a ticket.

Next on the agenda, a screening of "How I Got Lost" at the Trenton Film Festival on Saturday, April 30th at 5:30pm. Less prestigious, yes, maybe a little obscure -- sure. Regardless, this is going to be a very good thing. There will be a bus for Blatantly Subtle to attend leaving from Manhattan. Festival number one. After a meeting last week with a filmmaker advisor at IFP I'm considering chopping it down a bit for the rest of it's festival life, see if it gets a second wind.

Finally, "How I Got Lost" (the feature screenplay) is a finalist for the Richard Vague Production Fund, a $100,000 grant for NYU alumni making a first feature. So I will be pitching it to the selection committee the same week.

All of this makes me very excited to get back to New York.

There are no end products.

The screening went well. I was surprised who came, to tell you the truth. The Temple Bar is really kind of a music venue/bar. Not exactly the sort of place you expect to see short films. But the place was full, and as I walked in (late) I saw four or five people to wave to. All of the people that I thought "wouldn't it be great if they came."

Visually the movies didn't look great through the video projector (it looked good enough but Justina wouldn't have been happy) but the sound blasted through the music venue speakers, and it was a wonderful thing hearing all the work that Dom and I did. All of the dog barks and subtleties. And I was really surprised. My movie showed second and after the first minute people got quiet and watched. And they laughed at Andrew and understood Jake. More or less it worked, and I felt pretty good about it. Afterwards I hung around with Lily and it was like a dream where all of the people you have met show up. That's what happened. So many of the people I have met out here in the last year went out of their way to come by to say hi and talk about the movie. Even the director of "Harold and Kumar" was there... and he liked the way it was directed and edited, said it was pretty good. Not bad.

There are no end products. Nothing that can happen at a screening or anywhere else can really live up to all of the work that goes into making a movie and all of the high hopes you experience. The work is where all of the good stuff happens, I think. That's what I was thinking the whole day before the screening, and I had a great time. I was really happy throughout the whole night. The movie screened with four other shorts at the IFP LA Cinema Lounge programmed by Julianna Brannum, who has herself gone out of the way to help me out. Things like this are very important when you're making movies and you aren't sure what to do next...

What'd you guys think of the Oscars? I didn't have too many thoughts, really. I enjoyed the show kind of mindlessly. Thought Chris Rock had some valid points and that Sean Penn looked like Bob Hope or someone standing up for Jude Law... Watched the whole show all the way through. Earlier in the week I had seen them setting it up down on Hollywood Blvd. Screwed up traffic all week... I thought that Eternal Sunshine and Sideways won for good reason -- and I always like the screenplay category. I saw Million Dollar Baby two weeks ago and it blew my fucking socks off. There are some good theatres out here for seeing movies, I must say.

And speaking of awards ceremonies, I have tell you all that my dad, who has taken up coaching hockey since my brother and I left our highschool hockey careers behind, coached his way to his first State Championship last night!!! It was my highschool's first since my brother and I were on the team. The Burroughs Bombers played at the Blues arena (they weren't using it anyway) and beat St. Charles West 4 to 1. Not bad for my dad's first year coaching highschool hockey!

It made me think, do I know anyone else who would learn how to skate and teach hockey, out of the blue? It's a good question. Would I? I gotta try to be more like that. I watched my dad talk to his little guys (he started out coaching 10-12 year olds) before a game and I saw how he did it more than once. He was pretty good at it: he would come into the lockerroom and tell them to shut up and quit calling each other gay and saying bad words to be cool and all that. And once he had their attention he gave what he called the "they hurt your dog" speech. Basically what he did was, he convinced them the other team was responsible for hurting their dog! The little kids would get psyched up and mad and run out onto the ice in their skates, ready to play. He saved it for the big game of the year... Anyway, how cool is that.

We all need a good "they hurt your dog" pep talk once in awhile, I've decided. (Maybe even one every day?)

"How I Got Lost" IFP Screening in LA

how i got lost

Monday, February 28 7:30pm
The Temple Bar in Santa Monica, CA
Wilshire & 11th St.
IFP Cinema Lounge Screening

classic Blatantly Subtle on Triggerstreet.com

Two movies from the past -- "Bulletin Board" & "Personal Soundtrack" -- managed to make become a part of the most recent Triggerstreet online festival. If you haven't checked out this site, I'd really recommend it. If nothing else it is a great way to get kneejerk feedback.

Also, check out the responses to the films below.

Clearing the Way

It's the new year. I went to the Rose Bowl yesterday and it was a pretty amazing way to start off 2005. Jared and I walked around drinking orange juice and vodka out of plastic one-litre bottles and everyone had this look on their face. Or at least it seemed like they did to me. It was the new year.

I have been burning special edition dvds for cast and crew. If you are one of the lucky few, hold onto to your copy. Someday it will be worth thousands on eBay...

I've been clearing the music for my movie, which is overwhelming and educational. So far, the Sufjan Stevens song featured at the end of the movie (from the Michigan CD) has been cleared! And all I can say is that the people at Sounds Familyre -- specifically Lenny Smith -- are terrific and I'm really grateful to have befriended them. (Lenny had 2 questions: do you need all the f words? & can you use more of the song? my answers were yes & yes). I also was lucky to get to get festival rights to use the Walkmen song "138th St" and Matt Sharp's song "Shadows."

All of this has been pretty cool. I really have to thank everyone who has dealt with me over the phone, via email, and through the bane of my existence, the fax maching... Thank you for your patience and willingness to listen to me long enough and enough times so that I either convinced you to help me out or to get rid of me.